Pick your poison: Main equivalency!

cheesewonton said:

What's the effort? Compared to what? Your criticism makes no sense. It probably cost Kenmore ten cents to make that part and there are no fasteners or anything to install to put it in the bag chamber so assembly is not more expensive as a result. The Panasonic part adds no more complexity than the release levers found on the dust bins of countless bagless vacuums. Actually it is better because there is almost nothing to break on the expander cage. The plastic is thick, supple and not the least bit brittle or prone to breaking.

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I meant the R&D needed to make the bags competitive, not just improve the basic design. Also, you didn't answer me about Suction Work Rate vs. Airwatts.

Absolute Rainbow said:

I meant the R&D needed to make the bags competitive, not just improve the basic design. Also, you didn't answer me about Suction Work Rate vs. Airwatts.

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Air Watts are an instantaneous measurement of both suction and airflow simultaneously at a given orifice size. It's a snapshot in time. Suction and airflow will be different for every orifice size with suction increasing and airflow decreasing as the size of the orifice is reduced.

Suction work rate measures the volume of air that flows through the opening of a hose over a period of time, multiplied by the sealed suction also measured at the end of the hose and that product is multiplied by a constant. Measuring the total volume of air over a period of time reduces the errors inherent in trying to capture an instantaneous airflow measurement so you don't have to try to normalize for the different speeds of air in a tube or pipe with turbulent airflow as you encounter measuring air watts.

The research to make bags competitive is spread out over the millions of applications, not just vacuum bags but other equipment that requires HEPA filtration. The US HEPA standard in fact comes from the nuclear industry and was developed as part of the Manhattan Project during WWII. The requirement for HEPA filters to capture 99.97% of particles 3 microns in size was driven by the need to capture certain nuclear particles that are 3 microns. The vacuum industry simply adopted an existing filter media technology to vacuums. The same tech is used in hundreds of other industrial applications. Now you are going to try to convince me it costs more to develop a vacuum bag than it costs to develop a cyclone and I will laugh out loud if you do.